Local time – 10:15pm, Saturday 16th June, 2011.
Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Alex stood at the mirror in Henry’s hotel room bathroom. She stared at her reflection without seeing herself, eyes glazed in thought. She now considered the four men in the room outside in a different light. Her meeting with Henry hadn’t been an accident. But that didn’t surprise her. She had an inkling of that at the time. What she had most trouble with was reconciling the Bernie she thought she knew, with the Bernie now being presented to her. There was no doubt in her mind that Bernie would have been a brilliant spy. He was incredibly quick witted. She heard a soft knock at the door and opened it to find Henry waiting outside.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, I’m just getting used to the idea I didn’t know one of my closest friends.’
‘You did know him. You just knew his new life, not his old one.’
Henry came into the room and shut the door behind him. He sat on the edge of the bath. Alex sat next to him, her hip touching his. She stared at the tiled floor.
‘If Mossad killed Bernie, do you think that’s who’s looking for me? On the plane and at my hotel?’
‘Yes. That’s what I’m worried about.’
‘How would they have found out about what Bernie was doing?’
‘I don’t know. According to Phil, Bernie had to contact a couple of old colleagues who are still at Thames House. He needed their high level clearance to locate his old Pakistani contact. He thought he could trust them, but they might have betrayed him.’
‘Why do you think they need the iPad?’
‘There must be something on there that Bernie was going to use to locate the weapon. A map, or a phone number. Or a code even.’
‘Are you scared?’
‘I’m more angry than scared. Bernie was our one chance to find the last weapon. The truth video is only going to do so much. We need to stop the nuclear threat.’ Alex looked up and saw Henry watching her in the mirror. The electric look in his eyes was back. She stood up, breaking the connection between them.
‘Why was Bernie going to Prague? Was he really writing an article?’
‘He would have done that as well. He had to keep up his cover. But he was meeting me. I had never met him before and we needed to make contact before he went to Pakistan. To work out the best way to announce to the Bilderbergers that we had the last weapon.’
‘Where was he meeting you?’ Henry hesitated, searching the question for a problem. Then he replied.
‘Outside my hotel.’
‘And then he was going to Pakistan? To find the weapon?’
‘Yes. He would have left tomorrow morning.’
The bathroom suddenly felt very small. Henry stood so close, she could hear him breathing. They both looked down at her satchel. She had brought it into the bathroom, refusing to let it out of her sight. She picked it up.
‘We need to have a good look through the iPad don’t we? And we need to go to Pakistan tomorrow morning.’ Henry wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. She let him.
‘You’re not only beautiful. You’re also brave. Aren’t you Alex North?’
‘Brave or stupid. They’re often the same thing.’ Alex felt her whole body flush as Henry lent his head towards her and kissed her. Her fear melted away for the briefest of moments, superseded by Henry’s determination to make things right. Bernie’s mission had become hers.